Post by Mizagium on Sept 25, 2013 22:31:38 GMT -5
Prologue – The Great Ruin
Rivain’s world consisted of the heat of the blaze and the stench of death. She was covered in blood, none of it hers. Frozen in place, a cry for help quivering on her lip, she watched as the man came towards her with purposeful steps. He stooped when he reached her, putting his eyes level with hers. The scene of slaughter framed his face and for a moment, he looked like a god of destruction.
“See what your people have wrought,” he declared coolly. “Know the price of disobedience and defiance. Where I go, people kneel and submit to my judgment. Your people chose to resist. They chose incorrectly.” He touched the side of her face with a hand as cold as ice. “I do not grant you life as a mercy, but as a lesson: Know your place amongst the universe and when you encounter one such as me, so far above yourself – you must sink so low as I will not even notice you. Perhaps then you will be passed over and spared.”
He waited for a minute, perhaps waiting for her to react, but she didn’t. Satisfied, her rose and walked away.
“I’ll kill you.”
He turned slowly, less astonished to hear her words as she.
“I’ll kill you,” she said again.
He smiled and it chilled her to her bones.
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
With a swipe of his hand, the air rent open, revealing a gaping void into which the man disappeared.
Part I – The Discovery
She was getting close. Rivain had travelled for many years and across many worlds. Many times she had come close, and each time, the trail had gone cold. For the first time ever, she was chasing a warm trail. The scar here hadn’t fully healed yet, she could still the individual lines where his claw had torn through the dimensional fabric.
She summoned her worldclaw and touched the scar just so – and the whole thing tore apart like a reopened wound. Through the tear she went.
Some uncountable number of worlds ago, she encountered a people devastated by him. They had surrendered to him, but he destroyed them all the same. They had named him Mahleon, meaning “great ruin” in one of their ancient languages. The name must have spread because a few worlds later, she heard it again. And from then on, she had been chasing the Mahleon. Rivain suspected he was spreading the name himself.
The world she emerged in wasn’t much different from the last – they seldom were. Most were inhabited by humans, more often kingdoms than any other form of government. Magic tended to be fairly common, although she was starting to see scientific societies more and more. Mahleon didn’t seem to prefer one type of world over the other, although the non-human worlds he tended to devastate completely.
He followed a pattern of actions. Upon arriving in a new place, he would seek the nearest settlement and demonstrate his abilities before asking for a tribute – what he wanted was irrelevant and dependent on his mood. If they surrendered, he let them be; if they chose to fight him, he razed it to the ground, leaving a lone survivor. The survivor was almost always a young girl, to whom he spoke the same words: “Your life is a lesson, not a mercy.” She had spoken to several and they all described the same man. Not tall exactly, but imposing. He wore a black suit that never seemed to dirty. His hair was red like fire and blood.
So she chased the red-haired man in a suit called Mahleon to repay him the blood debt she and countless other worlds owed him. A single death was not enough, but it would have to suffice.
The locals noticed her arrival almost immediately, having apparently survived their encounter with destruction. An alarm was raised and what must have been the local guards rushed to investigate. They wielded spears and polearms. In the back, she noticed what might have been magic-users. One of them shouted something at her – probably the captain or something similar. The words changed, but the meanings were always the same – “Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?”
She didn’t recognize this language, but she knew one word they would understand.
“Mahleon.”
The crowd around her instantly backed away and a hushed murmur rippled throughout. “Mahleon,” the repeated to each other. “Mahleon? Mahleon! Mahleon!”
The one who spoke before pointed his sword at her and barked more useless words. He probably wanted to know if she served him and that the village would stand against her and him this time even if it meant the death of everyone they would not be cowards.
It was always the same.
She had learned how to communicate her intentions very clearly by now. “Mahleon,” she repeated, drawing a finger across her throat.
The guard captain hesitated. “Mahleon…” he indicated the town and then smashed a fist into his open palm.
Rivain nodded and pressed a fist to her heart. “Mahleon.” Then she pointed to herself, drew the finger across her throat again. “Mahleon!”
That seemed to work because the captain nodded curtly and shouted something to his men. They all began to move back towards the town, slowly – rightly cautious around the strange woman from another world. But they listened to the man in charge. He beckoned her and she followed at her own pace.
In some worlds, he lack of weapons calmed initial suspicions of hostility. Other times it only induced a greater fear. Mahleon carried no weapons, creating destruction with his bare hands. Survivors of the Mahleon learned how to suspect everyone. Many forgot how to trust.
As they walked through the village, the captain pointed out areas that had been destroyed in various ways. The injured were being cared for in a local clinic but it would not be enough for many. Mahleon’s wounds were often poisonous; it will not be a pleasant end for them.
He traced a straight path through the town, apparently following Mahleon’s steps before stopping at the edge and pointing ahead. Sure enough, a scar disfigured the air before them, but only she could see it. The captain just knew that Mahleon had vanished there. It was curious, though: Usually, Mahleon’s path of destruction was more haphazard, more random, even in towns he spared. This one, though…seemed lazy.
Rivain conjured her worldclaw again and tore open the scar. The captain watched her go and said something that might have been a blessing or a warning to never return. It didn’t matter. She stepped onto a other world and never looked back.
The worldclaw had been a gift from the man who had taken her in after the destruction. The eyes had been a curse from the cult he devoted himself to. She remembered the warmth and power that had filled her when they had bestowed the power to rend the veil between worlds upon her. She also remembered the terror and the blinding pain as they replaced her eyes with ones that could see the veil between worlds. She thanked them in blood and ensured they would never create another like her again.
Destruction greeted her across the gap. Three more worlds of ruin. She did not stop to seek out a survivor. The death was fresh and if she hurried, she might catch him in the act.
Then something curious happened: She encountered a world untouched by the hand of Mahleon. Rivain hesitated, but was sure he had come here. She couldn’t check the scar anymore though, as it now carried her mark. Farther on, though, she could see another scar – and it was his! And it was fresh. Perturbed but not discouraged, she pressed onward.
More worlds, free of ruin.
How long had it been since she’d slept?
Her chase came to an abrupt end when she leapt through a scar that hadn’t fully healed yet only to emerge on a sheer cliff face with Mahleon waiting at the edge, looking out over the valley below.
She hesitated again, confused.
“So,” he said in his familiar, icy voice. “You’re the one who’s been chasing me all these years.”
“I promised you I would kill you.”
“Many have made me such a promise. None have followed through.” He turned to look at her; his eyes chilled her again the way they had all those years ago. “There’s a question on your lips.”
“Why did you spare all those worlds?”
His eyebrows rose. “Should I have brought the great ruin to them?”
“Why, after so many?”
He shrugged. “I have grown weary of destruction; I think I shall find some new vocation to occupy my time. Something less likely to bring harm to myself.”
“No! You don’t get to just walk away from it all like that! Not after everything you – not after all those people – “
“I can and I will.” He brandished his worldclaw. “I have that ability. So do you. We can end it right here, you know.”
“I owe you a great debt,” Rivain growled, brandishing her own worldclaw. “And I mean to pay it.”
He didn’t say anything, only shook his head. Then he bolted! He ran off the edge of the cliff. When Rivain finally reacted and looked over, a wide scar had been torn in the air, revealing another world. Without a second though, she hurled herself over the edge and through the tear.
He was already through the next tear when she landed, but she didn’t waste any time in following.
She caught a glimpse of his leg through the next one.
Two legs.
An arm.
From the waist down.
And then he was all there. World after world witnessed two figures appearing and disappearing and disappearing into holes in the air. With each tear, she inched closer and closer. Rivain held the advantage here, not having to devote any attention towards where she would emerge. At first it seemed as if Mahleon was trying to stick his usual pattern, but as she closed the gap, he began opening holes to any kind of world he could find. She saw worlds with all flying men, with fish men, with great towers of gleaming metal that scraped the sky, with a darkened sky and hideous monsters roaming the landscape – and then they ran through worlds of nothing. Barren worlds of rock and lava and deserts.
She caught him in a jungle area, worldclaw primed. He hesitated, perhaps wondering where the next tear would take him, but she was upon him before he could decide. They crashed to the ground and she began to tear at his back flesh with her bare hands. He was shouting something. So was she. She couldn’t hear anything through the rage; couldn’t see anything through the tears. Blood. So much blood. It wasn’t enough.
Mahleon clawed at the world, opening a tear and trying to pull himself into it. Rivain would not let him. He tore again, opening a tear in that other world, frantically seeking a way to escape. He tore and tore at the universe as she tore at his body. World after world opened and closed to him.
And then…an inky darkness opened to him, deeper than that deepest night. Wherever that was, it pulled on him and her, drawing them in. The suction was too great for them to withstand. Rivain and Mahleon tumbled into the darkness.
When they came to, they were sprawled across a crystalline surface. Mahleon lay a few feet away from Rivain. He stirred. So did she. He got to his feet. So did she. He saw her; she saw him. He ran. She chased.
They appeared to be within a great crystalline structure and running deeper into it. Strangely, Rivain felt progressively weaker as they delved – it seemed Mahleon did as well because he was slowing, breathing heavily. He tripped over his own feet and careened down the remainder of the path, coming to a halt at the end of a hallway with no exits.
He scrambled to his feet and backed against the wall. There was fear in his eyes, Rivain saw.
“See what you have wrought,” she said as she approached, conjuring her worldclaw. “Know your place amongst the universe and when you encounter one such as me, so far above yourself – you must sink so low as I will not even notice you. Perhaps then you will be passed over and spared.”
Before he could respond, she dug the claw into his chest with an animalistic scream and tore at the universe. He crumbled against her as his heart tumbled into another world. His blood stained her arm when she removed it and let him drop to the ground.
It was over.
Rivain waited, watching the body, expecting something – when it didn’t come, she frowned. She wanted more…more what? What was it she wanted now? Some catharsis, perhaps. The seething hatred and anger that had filled her for years didn’t just dissipate once Mahleon was dead. It remained, but without anything for her to direct it at. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the pooling blood and turned away.
Having nowhere to go now, she chose to explore the crystalline structure. Maybe she could distract herself long enough to forget.
The structure seemed entirely composed of a strange, crystalline substance. It was smooth to the touch and slightly warm. Nothing appeared to have cut into it at any point, meaning it was all one massive continuous crystal. What unsettled her about that, was that there were clear corridors and rooms, stairs and ramps. Entire areas consisted of small vesicles not much taller than her, big enough for a person to sit in uncomfortably.
In her mind, the place was a prison and each vesicle was occupied by…who? What kind of criminal would deserve to be thrown into a jail cell that sapped your strength away?
People like Mahleon who fled across worlds, free from any form of justice, cosmic or otherwise.
Eventually she wound her way back, retracing her steps down to the scene of the final confrontation. She hadn’t noticed it before, but that was the area she felt the greatest drain on her strength. It was the deepest level she had discovered – and the only dead end. Everything else joined without another tunnel.
A tiredness washed over her. It wasn’t the power draining effect, but something more like the years and years of running, sustained by hate, had finally caught up to her. Sorrow replaced the anger. He steps began sluggish.
The body was gone.
Mahleon’s bleeding, heartless corpse was missing. All of the blood was gone. The stain on the wall was absent, but she was too tired to care then. By the time she reached the end of the ramp down, she was crawling forward, so tired she could hardly see. Rivain rested against the only dead end in the entire structure, and felt the warmth of the crystal lull her to sleep. And in the liminal state of consciousness, she felt something strange – but wasn’t sure she felt anything at all.
It…felt like…
Tha-thump.
Rivain’s world consisted of the heat of the blaze and the stench of death. She was covered in blood, none of it hers. Frozen in place, a cry for help quivering on her lip, she watched as the man came towards her with purposeful steps. He stooped when he reached her, putting his eyes level with hers. The scene of slaughter framed his face and for a moment, he looked like a god of destruction.
“See what your people have wrought,” he declared coolly. “Know the price of disobedience and defiance. Where I go, people kneel and submit to my judgment. Your people chose to resist. They chose incorrectly.” He touched the side of her face with a hand as cold as ice. “I do not grant you life as a mercy, but as a lesson: Know your place amongst the universe and when you encounter one such as me, so far above yourself – you must sink so low as I will not even notice you. Perhaps then you will be passed over and spared.”
He waited for a minute, perhaps waiting for her to react, but she didn’t. Satisfied, her rose and walked away.
“I’ll kill you.”
He turned slowly, less astonished to hear her words as she.
“I’ll kill you,” she said again.
He smiled and it chilled her to her bones.
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
With a swipe of his hand, the air rent open, revealing a gaping void into which the man disappeared.
Part I – The Discovery
She was getting close. Rivain had travelled for many years and across many worlds. Many times she had come close, and each time, the trail had gone cold. For the first time ever, she was chasing a warm trail. The scar here hadn’t fully healed yet, she could still the individual lines where his claw had torn through the dimensional fabric.
She summoned her worldclaw and touched the scar just so – and the whole thing tore apart like a reopened wound. Through the tear she went.
Some uncountable number of worlds ago, she encountered a people devastated by him. They had surrendered to him, but he destroyed them all the same. They had named him Mahleon, meaning “great ruin” in one of their ancient languages. The name must have spread because a few worlds later, she heard it again. And from then on, she had been chasing the Mahleon. Rivain suspected he was spreading the name himself.
The world she emerged in wasn’t much different from the last – they seldom were. Most were inhabited by humans, more often kingdoms than any other form of government. Magic tended to be fairly common, although she was starting to see scientific societies more and more. Mahleon didn’t seem to prefer one type of world over the other, although the non-human worlds he tended to devastate completely.
He followed a pattern of actions. Upon arriving in a new place, he would seek the nearest settlement and demonstrate his abilities before asking for a tribute – what he wanted was irrelevant and dependent on his mood. If they surrendered, he let them be; if they chose to fight him, he razed it to the ground, leaving a lone survivor. The survivor was almost always a young girl, to whom he spoke the same words: “Your life is a lesson, not a mercy.” She had spoken to several and they all described the same man. Not tall exactly, but imposing. He wore a black suit that never seemed to dirty. His hair was red like fire and blood.
So she chased the red-haired man in a suit called Mahleon to repay him the blood debt she and countless other worlds owed him. A single death was not enough, but it would have to suffice.
The locals noticed her arrival almost immediately, having apparently survived their encounter with destruction. An alarm was raised and what must have been the local guards rushed to investigate. They wielded spears and polearms. In the back, she noticed what might have been magic-users. One of them shouted something at her – probably the captain or something similar. The words changed, but the meanings were always the same – “Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?”
She didn’t recognize this language, but she knew one word they would understand.
“Mahleon.”
The crowd around her instantly backed away and a hushed murmur rippled throughout. “Mahleon,” the repeated to each other. “Mahleon? Mahleon! Mahleon!”
The one who spoke before pointed his sword at her and barked more useless words. He probably wanted to know if she served him and that the village would stand against her and him this time even if it meant the death of everyone they would not be cowards.
It was always the same.
She had learned how to communicate her intentions very clearly by now. “Mahleon,” she repeated, drawing a finger across her throat.
The guard captain hesitated. “Mahleon…” he indicated the town and then smashed a fist into his open palm.
Rivain nodded and pressed a fist to her heart. “Mahleon.” Then she pointed to herself, drew the finger across her throat again. “Mahleon!”
That seemed to work because the captain nodded curtly and shouted something to his men. They all began to move back towards the town, slowly – rightly cautious around the strange woman from another world. But they listened to the man in charge. He beckoned her and she followed at her own pace.
In some worlds, he lack of weapons calmed initial suspicions of hostility. Other times it only induced a greater fear. Mahleon carried no weapons, creating destruction with his bare hands. Survivors of the Mahleon learned how to suspect everyone. Many forgot how to trust.
As they walked through the village, the captain pointed out areas that had been destroyed in various ways. The injured were being cared for in a local clinic but it would not be enough for many. Mahleon’s wounds were often poisonous; it will not be a pleasant end for them.
He traced a straight path through the town, apparently following Mahleon’s steps before stopping at the edge and pointing ahead. Sure enough, a scar disfigured the air before them, but only she could see it. The captain just knew that Mahleon had vanished there. It was curious, though: Usually, Mahleon’s path of destruction was more haphazard, more random, even in towns he spared. This one, though…seemed lazy.
Rivain conjured her worldclaw again and tore open the scar. The captain watched her go and said something that might have been a blessing or a warning to never return. It didn’t matter. She stepped onto a other world and never looked back.
The worldclaw had been a gift from the man who had taken her in after the destruction. The eyes had been a curse from the cult he devoted himself to. She remembered the warmth and power that had filled her when they had bestowed the power to rend the veil between worlds upon her. She also remembered the terror and the blinding pain as they replaced her eyes with ones that could see the veil between worlds. She thanked them in blood and ensured they would never create another like her again.
Destruction greeted her across the gap. Three more worlds of ruin. She did not stop to seek out a survivor. The death was fresh and if she hurried, she might catch him in the act.
Then something curious happened: She encountered a world untouched by the hand of Mahleon. Rivain hesitated, but was sure he had come here. She couldn’t check the scar anymore though, as it now carried her mark. Farther on, though, she could see another scar – and it was his! And it was fresh. Perturbed but not discouraged, she pressed onward.
More worlds, free of ruin.
How long had it been since she’d slept?
Her chase came to an abrupt end when she leapt through a scar that hadn’t fully healed yet only to emerge on a sheer cliff face with Mahleon waiting at the edge, looking out over the valley below.
She hesitated again, confused.
“So,” he said in his familiar, icy voice. “You’re the one who’s been chasing me all these years.”
“I promised you I would kill you.”
“Many have made me such a promise. None have followed through.” He turned to look at her; his eyes chilled her again the way they had all those years ago. “There’s a question on your lips.”
“Why did you spare all those worlds?”
His eyebrows rose. “Should I have brought the great ruin to them?”
“Why, after so many?”
He shrugged. “I have grown weary of destruction; I think I shall find some new vocation to occupy my time. Something less likely to bring harm to myself.”
“No! You don’t get to just walk away from it all like that! Not after everything you – not after all those people – “
“I can and I will.” He brandished his worldclaw. “I have that ability. So do you. We can end it right here, you know.”
“I owe you a great debt,” Rivain growled, brandishing her own worldclaw. “And I mean to pay it.”
He didn’t say anything, only shook his head. Then he bolted! He ran off the edge of the cliff. When Rivain finally reacted and looked over, a wide scar had been torn in the air, revealing another world. Without a second though, she hurled herself over the edge and through the tear.
He was already through the next tear when she landed, but she didn’t waste any time in following.
She caught a glimpse of his leg through the next one.
Two legs.
An arm.
From the waist down.
And then he was all there. World after world witnessed two figures appearing and disappearing and disappearing into holes in the air. With each tear, she inched closer and closer. Rivain held the advantage here, not having to devote any attention towards where she would emerge. At first it seemed as if Mahleon was trying to stick his usual pattern, but as she closed the gap, he began opening holes to any kind of world he could find. She saw worlds with all flying men, with fish men, with great towers of gleaming metal that scraped the sky, with a darkened sky and hideous monsters roaming the landscape – and then they ran through worlds of nothing. Barren worlds of rock and lava and deserts.
She caught him in a jungle area, worldclaw primed. He hesitated, perhaps wondering where the next tear would take him, but she was upon him before he could decide. They crashed to the ground and she began to tear at his back flesh with her bare hands. He was shouting something. So was she. She couldn’t hear anything through the rage; couldn’t see anything through the tears. Blood. So much blood. It wasn’t enough.
Mahleon clawed at the world, opening a tear and trying to pull himself into it. Rivain would not let him. He tore again, opening a tear in that other world, frantically seeking a way to escape. He tore and tore at the universe as she tore at his body. World after world opened and closed to him.
And then…an inky darkness opened to him, deeper than that deepest night. Wherever that was, it pulled on him and her, drawing them in. The suction was too great for them to withstand. Rivain and Mahleon tumbled into the darkness.
When they came to, they were sprawled across a crystalline surface. Mahleon lay a few feet away from Rivain. He stirred. So did she. He got to his feet. So did she. He saw her; she saw him. He ran. She chased.
They appeared to be within a great crystalline structure and running deeper into it. Strangely, Rivain felt progressively weaker as they delved – it seemed Mahleon did as well because he was slowing, breathing heavily. He tripped over his own feet and careened down the remainder of the path, coming to a halt at the end of a hallway with no exits.
He scrambled to his feet and backed against the wall. There was fear in his eyes, Rivain saw.
“See what you have wrought,” she said as she approached, conjuring her worldclaw. “Know your place amongst the universe and when you encounter one such as me, so far above yourself – you must sink so low as I will not even notice you. Perhaps then you will be passed over and spared.”
Before he could respond, she dug the claw into his chest with an animalistic scream and tore at the universe. He crumbled against her as his heart tumbled into another world. His blood stained her arm when she removed it and let him drop to the ground.
It was over.
Rivain waited, watching the body, expecting something – when it didn’t come, she frowned. She wanted more…more what? What was it she wanted now? Some catharsis, perhaps. The seething hatred and anger that had filled her for years didn’t just dissipate once Mahleon was dead. It remained, but without anything for her to direct it at. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the pooling blood and turned away.
Having nowhere to go now, she chose to explore the crystalline structure. Maybe she could distract herself long enough to forget.
The structure seemed entirely composed of a strange, crystalline substance. It was smooth to the touch and slightly warm. Nothing appeared to have cut into it at any point, meaning it was all one massive continuous crystal. What unsettled her about that, was that there were clear corridors and rooms, stairs and ramps. Entire areas consisted of small vesicles not much taller than her, big enough for a person to sit in uncomfortably.
In her mind, the place was a prison and each vesicle was occupied by…who? What kind of criminal would deserve to be thrown into a jail cell that sapped your strength away?
People like Mahleon who fled across worlds, free from any form of justice, cosmic or otherwise.
Eventually she wound her way back, retracing her steps down to the scene of the final confrontation. She hadn’t noticed it before, but that was the area she felt the greatest drain on her strength. It was the deepest level she had discovered – and the only dead end. Everything else joined without another tunnel.
A tiredness washed over her. It wasn’t the power draining effect, but something more like the years and years of running, sustained by hate, had finally caught up to her. Sorrow replaced the anger. He steps began sluggish.
The body was gone.
Mahleon’s bleeding, heartless corpse was missing. All of the blood was gone. The stain on the wall was absent, but she was too tired to care then. By the time she reached the end of the ramp down, she was crawling forward, so tired she could hardly see. Rivain rested against the only dead end in the entire structure, and felt the warmth of the crystal lull her to sleep. And in the liminal state of consciousness, she felt something strange – but wasn’t sure she felt anything at all.
It…felt like…
Tha-thump.